arietta

Short ariettas and ariosos keep “Serse,” a comic love story, moving along.

The sonata's last movement begins as a set of variations on a bewitching arietta but gradually goes out of any expected structural, harmonic, tonal or melodic bounds.

Her arietta, 'When a lover is poor,' was quite neatly sung.

This morning she was noticeably hoarse, and there was a break in the arietta.

The slow movement, again, consists of an arietta of two eight-measure strains—the first in C major, the second in A minor.